Sig Christenson: The hot war in Anbar

Talk about hot air. It comes through the gunner’s windows of a Marine Corps helicopter like a blow drier set on hot  and high.

Below us is sandy Anbar, a slice of western Iraq on the Syrian border that could be the setting for a scene right out of “Lawrence of Arabia,” complete with the violence.

Somewhere out there, a Jihadist or Iraqi insurgent wants to kill us.

This is not an overstatement. The Marines and soldiers posted to this province, one of 18 in Iraq and the one folks like to call the “Wild West,” are so cautious they fly only at night. They also fly with their navigation lights off.

The pilots and gunners use night-vision goggles.

We’re headed to Ramadi, the provincial capital. The place we are hoping to reach safely this night is a barracks and office complex not far from the local government center, a broken and dusty building that has been the object of many attacks.

But getting here isn’t easy. Photographer Nicole Fruge and I have spent the better part of 24 hours flying from San Antonio to Kuwait. After about an hour’s sleep, we awoke, pulled ourselves together and got on board a C-17 for a 45-minute flight to Baghdad.

As always, it was a flight of high drama. The aircraft, like all those arriving at old Saddam International Airport, made a combat landing to avoid insurgents trying to shoot it down. That meant a steep dive toward the end of the mission.

I’ll share more about that flight in another blog.

We caught a cab on the civilian side of the airport and left its safety for the “Red Zone,” as some call the part of Baghdad that belongs to its residents.

Our driver was an Iraqi who spoke broken English and seemed very nervous about having a pair of Americans in his car. For the record, and the expense report, he demanded $35 for a 10-minute ride to the “Flying Man” statue at the airport entrance, where we were to meet a USA Today security team.

I first offered $20.

“Cheap,” he said.

I gave him $35 and was glad to see him go.

Then, with temperature well over 120, we literally laid low but still attracted too much attention.

“Pepsi, mister?” a kid asked.

I waved him off.

The cab driver and an airport security man were nervous about us running into employees of the Ministry of Transportation, now under the control of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada Al Sadr. We were told that they shoot at Americans.

Taking a cab out to the statue was risky, but it was also the quickest way to the Green Zone and an office where we had to be accredited before going to Ramadi.

Getting there quickly was imperative because the Marines had lined up a flight to Ramadi after dark.

The USA Today security team, it turned out, included one of my fixers from a previous trip to Baghdad.

“Louis!” I cried.

It took a moment, but he recognized me, and we hugged. Two years of incessant bombings, kidnappings and murders had passed since we had worked together and I wondered if he was still alive.

Then it was off into the heart of Baghdad, a place that looks grittier than ever in the third summer of the U.S.-led occupation. We passed by old men in dusty tunics, shopkeepers outside ramshackle buildings and dented, aging cars. That seemed no different from mid-August 2004, when we left here, but one thing was different: traffic in a city under siege was lighter. Much lighter.

Hours later, after coffee and dinner in Saddam’s famed Republican Palace, we boarded the Marine helo, protected by bullet-proof vests, Kevlar helmets and a pair of tough-looking gunners.

We flew west, low and fast, stopping once in Fallujah and then again at a refueling station. It was close to 11 p.m. when we made it to a remote landing strip outside Ramadi. We walked in the dark, using no lights at all, and clambered into a column of Humvees. The Marines driving these armored vehicles didn’t turn on their lights.

All the roads here are dangerous. They’re frequently lined with explosives like one that blew out a tire and punctured its transmission two days ago.

Attacks come night and day. There’s always an enemy mortar in waiting. More and more, the insurgents are squeezing off rocket-propelled grenades at Marines working behind the protection of sandbags and camouflage nets on rooftop posts.

The threat of snipers is omnipresent, forcing anyone leaving our building to put on their protective gear and run the 20 yards or so it takes to enter the government center.

This is the hot war in Anbar. It’s what all of Iraq could be if the civil war gets worse. One State Department official told me if the situation in Baghdad doesn’t improve by the beginning of next year, there will be no turning back from a bloodbath here.

“So how long are you staying in Ramadi?” he asked during my visit to the Republican Palace.